A blog about my landscape image making. On landscape imaging in general, bits of history and related disciplines (Architecture, Geography, Neuro Science, Philosophy and whatever happens to get my attention)

2011-03-30

I do not like the idea to connect to much the blog with the seasonal ongoing. But, having to change subjects to reflect better the various ongoing of my production, and to not mortally annoy the few frequent followers,
I'm reopening the series "Rites of passage" started last year. It will go on for a couple of months intermixed with the still open other ones (trainscapes). This year continuation will be more about the newly (re)built areas in the "Parco Agricolo Sud Milano" (PASM). The "new" resulted far more difficult to approach. I'm trying to stay away as much as possible to any form of regret, or judgment, for what I have seen. "Going light", I would like to say. The questions the places pose are many though. Starting from the spatial insulation of these new loci to the sub dimensioned infrastructure, read roads and the such, but having a heavy dependence in car transportation.
... Italian ...

2011-03-23

While the RAW material grows relatively fast the editing process of this trainscape thing is taking a lot more processing time than usual. Mainly the problem is with the editing decision of which picture to show and not. Breaking the barrier of the technically unacceptable takes away several criteria (burdens ?) of selection. The mistakes mostly come from the optical flare, vague focusing criteria, unexpected obstacles or light sources, erratic exposure and late triggering. I'm not including blurr as an error, as a matter of fact it is somewhat contemplated albeit not controlled. Recently I've resumed reading a book on a history of the photographic error by Clément Chéroux "Fautographie : Petite histoire de l'erreur photographique". Unfortunately I did not find an English version. I have the Italian one. This short article by the same author contains most of the concept. This page is a short digest, in French, that contains the main images upon which the book is based. A quote:

"The inconsistency of the errors is mainly based on those who judge them as such. Thus the verdict depends on who states it and, as a consequence, from the cultural environment surrounding him."

I'm finding it refreshing and, even if it does not add up that much to the already known, consistent and systematic. I would have liked to add "anal as only a museum curator could be" but you know it may not be that polite. If you are looking for ways in which photographic aesthetic norms are made this may be a very useful reading.

2011-03-21

Finally I've got to a revision of my first published book on blurb.com. Before making it available over there I'm publishing a pdf version from issuu.com an interesting service for online publication and consultation.
Mainly I've revised the book design, now lighter than the former, did a more careful selection of fonts and a bit of editing on the texts. The images have been completely processed ex novo. I'm happy with it for now and need to work on the next personal production.
Feel free to point out defects of any kind.
The first revision of the book was presented here grouped with some pictures from Corsica.

2011-03-18

I still remember it as it was yesterday. I was in Spain partecipating to the annual "Logic Colloquium" held, that time, in Granada when, in a restaurant, I saw in the TV some scenes from a seamingly familiar place. To my surprise, and fear, it was Valtellina, and the news was that a large scale natural disaster was infuriating there. In the beginning it was torrents and rivers overflowing but then ... as in any complex system, the chain reaction shifted things to a gigantic landslide of an entire mountain. My parents, relative as well as the entire population of the area had been evacuated and temporaly went to the houses up in the mountains. You can find some more info on the disaster here. This winter I decided to get back to the place 23 years after to make some photographic scouting and took the pictures above. I plan to get there more extensively this year.

2011-03-16

What really makes me enjoy taking pictures from the train is the complete immersion that can be obtained. Literally I start to see everything as a stream of possible pictures. Each one suggests different feelings and thoughts. Something that I always happened to feel looking out of the train window before starting this photographic play. Sometimes, taking pictures, I have to decide which one, among the perceived, I'm going to take, sometimes in this process the image gets lost, timing is quite requiring. So I'm developing different shooting approaches. One of them is to act without trying to anticipate what is coming, looking straight out of the window, through the viewfinder trying to keep a 90 degree incidence with the horizon, in such a way I can operate with more steadiness and attention. This reduces the total sight I can have but I find that it reproduce the suggested approach to consumer photography as it may be found in some recent advertisement that suggested to look at the world exclusively through the camera LCD screen (I seem to remember that was from HP).